POP MUSIC : Bodie’s, Legendary S.D. Nightclub, Is Rockin’ Again

It’s a small, dark, cubicle with a 22-foot-high ceiling and a wall-to-wall hardwood dance floor that vibrates from the relentless pounding of hundreds of happy feet.

Along one wall is a bar; along another a carpeted stage, on which San Diego’s finest original rock bands do their thing five nights a week, Wednesday through Sunday. Overlooking the stage is an L-shaped balcony with stools and chairs and tables for those who’d rather listen than dance, rather groove than move.

Welcome to Bodie’s, resurrected last month after a five-year absence, in a new location--downtown on F Street, between 5th and 6th avenues--by 30-year-old Brett Bodie. Brett’s father, Harvey, ran the original Bodie’s on University Avenue, just east of College Avenue, from 1981 until he lost his lease in 1985.

The old Bodie’s was the equal of New York’s CBGB’s on the San Diego music scene. It was the place to go to hear up-and-coming local talent. “The Beat Farmers played there every weekend for a year and a half,” Bodie recalled.

Other regulars included DFX2, the Paladins, the Evasions, Playground Slap, and Mojo Nixon, who would later pay tribute to Bodie’s in the song, “Positively Bodie’s Parking Lot,” on his 1987 album, “Bo-Day-Shus!!!” And the club’s reputation was such that big names like R.E.M., Los Lobos, and the Blasters would drop in, unannounced, whenever they were in town.

Brett Bodie is determined that the new Bodie’s live up to the old one’s legacy. As his father did, he’s booking only local bands that play original material, like the Forbidden Pigs, Romy Kaye and the Swinging Gates, Burning Bridges, and Daddy Longlegs. He’s also reserving Sunday nights for impromptu jam sessions.

“We’ve always wanted to reopen the club,” Bodie said. “The old bar had a good rep with musicians, and they wanted it to happen so much that they supported it. On any given night, you could see a ton of musicians out in the crowd, and that’s the same type of thing we want to get going again.”

The new Bodie’s has only been open a month, but it’s already “going again.” One night, midway through Comanche Moon’s set, Country Dick Montana of the Beat Farmers jumped on stage to sing a song or three. He was subsequently joined by singer-guitarist Bruce Thorpe of the Blonde Bruce Band--and then, one by one, the rest of the Beat Farmers.

“We want to be a musician’s bar,” Bodie said. “We did it before, and now, we’re just redoing what we already did.”

The resurrection of Bodie’s came about purely by accident. After the original club closed in 1985, the father-and-son team was left with Molly’s, “a little dive bar, an old-timers’ bar, downtown,” Brett Bodie said.

“A few months ago, our landlord told us we had to upgrade, and I said, ‘Dad, if we’re going to have to upgrade, why not bring back Bodie’s?’ ” he said. “So we took out the drop ceiling, built a stage, and basically decided to redo the old thing.

“The only difference is that this time, it’s my shot--my dad turned booking and management over to me. So now, I get to play off of his old thing, and he gets to play off of my knowledge. I grew up seeing all those great local bands from the late 1970s on up, at places like the Skeleton Club and Abbey Road.

“I went to every kind of thing when San Diego had a good, thriving original-music scene, and I’ve been paying attention to local bands ever since.”

Phil Collins came up with a unusual plan to thwart ticket scalpers when he played the 2,200-seat Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago.

Tickets went on sale only 24 hours before the concert, with a limit of one randomly assigned ticket per person. At the box office, you had to show a photo ID and sign your name on a form; then you got a receipt. The night of the concert, you had to bring your ID and receipt back to the box office to pick up your ticket.

The end result was that scalpers were effectively shut out from buying up the choicest seats and then reselling them at outrageous prices. If you bought a ticket, you had to use it.

Could this be the shape of things to come? San Diego concert promoters (or those who do shows here) and concert-hall operators are doubtful:

* Phil Quinn, executive vice president and general manager of the San Diego Sports Arena: “It may work in smaller venues, but it certainly wouldn’t work in a venue as large as this one. In a venue with 5,000 or more seats, it would get chaotic.”

* Jeff Gaulton of Bill Silva Presents: “I think any attempt to clean up ticket scalping is commendable, but it remains to be seen whether this is a plan that can work across the board. We have no plans to implement a program like this here in San Diego, but you have to remember, the San Diego market doesn’t have a history of concerts selling out and getting a lot of tickets scalped; it’s not nearly as big a problem as it is in Los Angeles.”

* Kenny Weissberg, promoter of the annual Concerts by the Bay series at Humphrey’s on Shelter Island: “That’s an extreme situation for someone like Phil Collins to play a 2,000-seat venue, so I don’t think it’s an idea that can be implemented under any circumstances other than something like that. And it doesn’t apply to Humphrey’s at all, because I don’t have any people like Phil Collins playing here. I’m totally against ticket scalpers, but I think what Ticketmaster does, with limiting first-day sales to six tickets per person, is about as much as one could expect to do to combat ticket scalping.”

* Brian Murphy of Avalon Attractions, which promoted the Collins date at the Wiltern: “It can only be applied to very big acts that are playing small venues, where the demand is certainly going to exceed the supply of tickets. I think that’s the only way it can work. And down here, if I had an artist of the stature of Phil Collins who wanted to play a Symphony Hall date, or a Civic Theater date, we could follow the same steps we instituted up there.”

LINER NOTES: The Palomar Music Festival, scheduled for Sunday afternoon at Palomar College in San Marcos, has been canceled. Headliner Jimmy Cliff came down with respiratory problems and postponed the entire West Coast leg of his U.S. tour. Refunds are available at point of purchase. All is not lost, however: The Untouchables, who were to open for Cliff, will be appearing, instead, at the Hype in Loma Portal. . . .

Last month’s ninth annual Entertainer Music Awards ceremony at the La Paloma Theater in Encinitas raised more than $4,700 for the Mary Lou Clack Center for Handicapped Children. . . .

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Nov. 17 for Bad Company’s Dec. 14 appearance, with the Damn Yankees, at Golden Hall downtown. . . .

Best concert bets for the coming week: Santana, Thursday at the Starlight Bowl in Balboa Park; the Henry Rollins Band with the Fluid and Subsociety, Saturday at Iguanas in Tijuana; James Taylor, Sunday at San Diego State University’s Open Air Theatre, and the Chambers Brothers, Monday at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach.